Why Russia Is Stockpiling So Much Gold (GLD)

From Tyler Durden: Russia is adding gold to its reserves at the fastest pace in 12 years, and dumping US Treasuries at the fastest pace since 2011.

The Central Bank of Russia (CBR) has been increasing its holdings of gold every month since March 2015. The country is currently the sixth-largest gold owner after the United States, Germany, Italy, France and China.

According to the CBR, gold reserves spiked to $455.2 billion between March 2 and 9 hitting a historic high not seen since September 2014.

“Our international reserves increased by $2.9 billion or 0.6 percent in a single week, mainly on the strength of positive re-evaluation,” said the regulator.

And in fact 2018 has seen the fastest increase in the value of Russia’s gold reserves since 2006…

In January, RT notes that Russia surpassed China, which reportedly held 1,843 tons of the precious metal at that time. Over the last 15 years, Moscow and Beijing have been aggressively accumulating gold reserves to reduce their dependence on the US dollar.

According to World Gold Council data, last year the CBR became a world leader in stockpiling gold.

The bank has more than doubled the pace of its gold purchases, statistics showed. It has been increasing Russia’s gold reserves to meet the goal set by President Vladimir Putin to make it less vulnerable to geopolitical risks. The Russian gold cache has increased by more than 500 percent since 2000.

And while the Russian central bank is buying gold with both hands and feet, it is dumping US Treasuries at the fastest pace for a January since 2011…